“I stole it from Finch,” he said.
“You really are in a bad place, aren’t you?” she said, wondering why he would want such a reminder.
“Let me put it this way,” Melville said. “It’s probably a good thing I ran into you tonight.”
ANN STAYED UNTIL ALMOST MIDNIGHT. As he walked her to her car, she turned to him. “You know what I always do when I break up with someone?”
“I’m sorry to admit I have no idea.”
“I do all the things I couldn’t do when we were together,” she said. “It might not seem like much, but it helps you remember who you used to be.”
He hugged her, and she got into the car.
“Didn’t you once own a boat?” she asked.
“I still do,” he said. “It’s been sitting in Finch’s driveway for the last six years.”
“Maybe it’s time you put it back in the water,” she suggested, squeezing his arm good-bye.
IT WAS A GOOD IDEA, Melville thought as he walked back to the house. Tomorrow he would call the boatyard and have them pick it up. It would probably need a lot of work, but he could do most of it himself. He didn’t know how long it would take to get the boat in shape, but it was something to do. And she was right, it would remind him of who he used to be.
30
AFTER THEY MADE LOVE for the second time that night, Hawk asked Zee out on a date.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why?” He was clearly amused. “You’re kidding me, right? You know, in some cultures, it’s customary for people to actually go on a date or two before they have sex.”
“Not in ours,” Zee said. “Not these days.”
“So that’s a no?”
“It’s difficult for me to get out,” she said. “Because of Finch. Jessina can’t often stay late in the evenings.”
“So let’s make it on a night she can stay.”
Zee didn’t answer.
“Okay,” he said. “Now you’re starting to piss me off. Maybe I’ll just go climb into the window of someone who actually wants to be seen with me.”
She laughed. “It’s not that. It’s that I just broke up with Michael, and…”
“And you don’t want to be seen with me.” He grinned at her.
She had to laugh. “I don’t want to run into Mickey,” she said. “I haven’t told him yet.”
“What if I take you to dinner out of town?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay when?”
“Okay, as soon as I can set it up with Jessina.”
Finch’s alarm bell went off. Zee got up and pulled on her robe. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said.
He put his hands behind his head, looking up through the skylight at a patch of starry sky. He sighed. “Where would I go?” he said under his breath. But he was smiling.
31
MELVILLE AND ZEE MET for coffee at Jaho. He told her that he was having the boat picked up and was going to try to get it back in the water.
“That’s a great idea,” Zee said.
“It’s something,” he said. “Maybe we can take it out together sometime.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
He paused for a moment, then asked the same question he always asked: “How’s Finch?”
Zee wished she had a better answer to give him. “About the same,” she said.
“You look a little tired,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“I think you need some more help.”
“I’m handling things,” she said.
“There’s a lot to handle.”
“He thought I was Maureen this morning,” she said. “He thinks that a lot.”
Melville considered. “It’s an honest mistake,” he said. “You look like your mother.”
“Not that much, I don’t,” she said.
“So what are you doing for you?”
She wanted to tell him about Hawk but thought better of it. She already knew what he would say. It was too soon.
“Enough,” she said.
“Name one thing.”
“I play skee ball.” She smiled.
He laughed. “God, that brings back a memory.”
In the summers when Melville had first lived with them, Zee had a habit of disappearing. Melville often hunted her down at the Willows playing skee ball. Sometimes, if it wasn’t too late and Finch wasn’t worried about her, Melville would play.
“I’ve developed the perfect bank shot,” she said.
He looked at her.
“I’m really all right,” she said again. “Good, in fact.”
MELVILLE DIDN’T WANT TO INTERFERE, but he was worried about Zee. He thought this was all too much for her. She wasn’t herself. He was worried about Finch, too, if the truth be known. He still spoke with Jessina once in a while, still paid her weekly salary, though Zee had told him not to. It was the least he could do, he said. Meaning it was something.
He wanted to stop by the shop to talk to Mickey about it. He was aware that Mickey hadn’t forgiven him for Maureen, probably would never forgive him for breaking up her marriage, but it didn’t matter. This was about Finch, and it was about Zee, and some things were more important.
He walked down Derby Wharf, past the rigging shed, looking up at the Friendship as he went by. He remembered when they were building her, had donated money for it, in fact. He’d been there the day that lightning had struck the main mast, and they’d had to raise more money to replace it. She was an amazing ship, if you thought about it, though he found he couldn’t think about it without thinking about Maureen and the story she’d been writing when she died.
Seeing Mickey was like looking at Maureen. Their eyes were the same. But as soon as Mickey spoke, the illusion shattered.
“Hi, Melville. What can I do you for?”
It was an old New England expression, but the twist was implicit.
“Funny,” Melville said.
“I want to talk to you about your niece,” Melville said. “I’m worried about her.”
Mickey listened without interrupting to insert his usual sarcasm. In the end he promised to help out. To take Finch out once in a while, just to give Zee some relief.
“You were friends once,” Melville said by way of justifying his request. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. Mickey had already agreed.
“Age-old rule,” Mickey said. “Stop selling when you get to yes.”
“Thank you,” Melville said. He started toward the door.
“Hey,” Mickey said, calling him back.
“What?” Melville said.
“I may never like you,” Mickey said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what you do for my niece.”
32
TODAY ANN WAS READING lace. She’d been doing this more and more in the last few years, ever since her friend Towner Whitney had given her all of her late Aunt Eva’s pieces. Ann thought of the lace as another reader might think of a crystal ball, something that you gazed into to help you see images. She’d done two readings before lunch and was now turning and crumpling a piece of black antique lace in an effort to gain more perspective about her regular customer, the one who wanted so badly to get married.
What she got was more of the same, a bad relationship that was getting worse by the moment. Ann thought it was time to tell the girl everything, and she was just trying to find the words when an image began to form in the lace. It looked like a vine, and it was moving. Ann watched as the vine turned to feathers and one of the longer feathers turned into a woman’s neck. Ann realized that what she was looking at was a swan. And then she saw something in the lace that she’d never seen before, but something she’d heard her friend Eva describe from her own lace reading. The swan began to move, and it turned to a man, and she recognized Melville.
The hopeful bride looked strangely at Ann, who had been staring, trancelike, into the lace for a very long time. The breeze from the ocean cooled the room, breaking the spell. Ann turned toward the open door in time to see Melville walking away from Mickey’s shop and across the parking lot toward town.